Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
US transfers Somali pirate suspects to Seychelles
US military transfers 15 pirate suspects to island nation Seychelles for prosecution
http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/kjm...p_logo_106.pngAssociated Press – 2 hours 38 minutes ago
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- The island nation of Seychelles says it has agreed to accept 15 Somali pirate suspects from U.S. military custody for prosecution.
The announcement on Tuesday follows an agreement between Seychelles President James Michel and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the two nations would continue to collaborate in the fight against piracy.
The Seychelles is a crucial linchpin in the fight against piracy. The U.S. military flies aerial surveillance drones from the island nation.
A top Seychelles official, Joel Morgan, said the prosecution would send a clear signal to pirates that they can't attack ships with impunity. About 20 percent of the roughly 500 prisoners in the Seychelles are Somali pirates.
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Gunmen attack tanker off Nigeria: piracy watchdog
http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/NR8...go/afp/afp.gifAFP – Thu, Mar 1, 2012
Heavily armed gunmen fired on an oil tanker off the coast of Nigeria in the latest in a spate of pirate attacks in the increasingly treacherous Gulf of Guinea, a maritime watchdog said Thursday.
The Panamanian-flagged, Nigerian-owned vessel thwarted an attempted boarding by taking evasive action during the attack, which occurred Wednesday at about 2300 local time (2200 GMT), the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said.
It came one day after pirates shot their way onto a Dutch-owned cargo vessel in the area and kidnapped three hostages including the captain, according to the IMB's Kuala Lumpur-based piracy reporting centre.
Noel Choong, who heads the centre, said no further details were available on the most recent incident, warning that the attackers may still be in the area.
The assault occurred about 80 nautical miles (148 kilometres) south of the Nigerian coast, the centre said.
The IMB, which is funded by shipowners, warned in September that the area's waters were emerging as a new piracy "hotspot" due to the weak enforcement capabilities of governments in the region.
Before the latest attack, Choong said the piracy centre had received reports of seven attacks off Nigeria and one off neighbouring Benin since January 1, adding that many more may have gone unreported.
The Nigerian Navy said on Wednesday that it had deployed vessels to search for the Dutch-owned cargo ship involved in the attack that saw the hostages taken.
It was not clear who had control of the vessel and authorities have not yet released details on the hostages, such as their nationalities.
Two weeks ago pirates fired on a Taiwanese-owned cargo vessel off Nigeria, killing the captain, according to the IMB, which said the vessel's chief engineer also died from a fall during the attack.
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Drones Will Seek Pirates at Sea
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April 06, 2012
UPI
The U.S. Navy says it will begin tests of airborne pilotless drones equipped with sensors that could distinguish small pirate boats at sea from other vessels.
Airborne tests of the Multi-Mode Sensor Seeker will take place this summer, the Office of Naval Research reported Thursday.
Placed on a robotic helicopter called Fire Scout and carrying advanced automatic target recognition software, the sensor will allow the helicopter to autonomously identify small boats on the water, reducing the workload of sailors operating it from control stations aboard Navy ships, researchers said.
"Sailors who control robotic systems can become overloaded with data, often sifting through hours of streaming video searching for a single ship," said Ken Heeke, program officer in ONR's Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department.
"The automatic target recognition software gives Fire Scout the ability to distinguish target boats in congested coastal waters using LADAR, and it sends that information to human operators, who can then analyze those vessels in a 3-D picture."
The target software compares the 3-D imagery to vessel templates or schematics stored in the system's memory, researchers said.
"The 3-D data gives you a leg up on target identification," said Dean Cook, a researcher at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division said. "Infrared and visible cameras produce 2-D pictures, and objects in them can be difficult to automatically identify."
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Navy sends robot helicopters to find pirates
Written By Jesse Emspak
Published April 09, 2012
Discovery News
The U.S. Navy is deploying robot helicopters that can spot pirate boats -- even when they're in a crowded sea lane.
Unlike their movie versions, real pirates don't identify themselves by flying a jolly roger. Navy ships try to identify the thieves by deploying both drones with cameras and human pilots, but in coastal areas with a lots of boats, it isn't easy to spot the one that's hostile. A sailor might have to watch hours of video to find the right one.
BLOG: Robotic Cheetah Breaks Land Speed Record
The Navy turned to a combination of different sensing technologies to address this. Called the Multi-Mode Sensor Seeker, or MMSS, an unmanned helicopter uses high-definition cameras, mid-wave infrared sensors and laser-radar (LADAR) to find the boat.
Meanwhile, sophisticated software allows the helicopter to identify the target independently of the operator. The software on board compares a 3-D image to templates and schematics in its memory.
It's an advance over traditional targeting –- in that case, even with an infrared image, soldiers need to check against a group of known silhouettes. Those are a lot less exact, since a boat could be at an angle, making it harder to identify.
Video: Robotic Snails May Save Lives
The software has been successfully tested in shore-based systems against vessels at sea. The next step is testing it in a piloted helicopter, against groups of about seven small boats in a military sea range off the California coast this summer.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/...#ixzz1rYLnxs8N
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Thought I'd post this now:
Schriever war game pits world against pirates
April 22, 2012 11:41 AM
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JAKOB RODGERS
The Gazette
Pirates swarming the Horn of Africa still give Air Force commanders heartburn in the year 2023.
Islamic radicals patrol the waters, leaving mayhem and death in their wake. They call themselves al Shabaab — a rough-and-tumble offshoot of the terrorists that brought down the World Trade Centers on 9/11.
The terrorist cell is the target of Operation Jolly Roger, a war game.
Looking 11 years into the future, troops from eleven countries will huddle in a secretive base on the outskirts of Las Vegas, commanding satellites and waging a high-tech war against a terrorist cell that’s hard to stamp out.
The elaborate five-day scenario began Friday after more than a year of preparation by troops at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.
It’s designed to challenge leaders with the emerging future of warfare — one waged partly in space, with countries across the world working together to get their satellites and intelligence in order.
It’s a future that’s destined to arrive quickly.
“For at least the second half of the 20th century, the U.S. enjoyed the stature and prosperity of levels seldom achieved in recorded history,” said William Parker, The Space Foundation’s special advisor for international affairs, during a panel discussion last week at the National Space Symposium at The Broadmoor. “Nobody had ever seen anything quite like it. It’s not going to be that way for the next 10 or 15 years.”
Instead, the future figures to look something like Schriever War Game.
Conducted by Air Force Space Command’s Space Innovation and Development Center, the war game involves about 270 people at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada who will coordinate troops from nearly a dozen countries while fighting fictitious pirates in eastern Africa.
War games are used by commanders to plot future actions. While the enemies are fictional, the battle plans are real.
The seventh rendition of the war game features NATO allies Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey. Longtime U.S. partners Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom will also participate.
Never before have so many countries tried to work side-by-side during the space-focused war game.
The Schriever War Game will map out how U.S. generals will communicate with their allies in a war and help leaders figure out how each nation’s space and computer capabilities would play out on the future battlefield.
Cash-strapped governments, as well as the “contested, competitive and congested” nature of space, have prompted the change, current and former top military space officials said during the Space Symposium.
Sharing the cost of military satellites and software has become a “trigger” for countries like France to become bigger players in space, said Col. Inaky Garcia-Brotons, chief of staff for the French Joint Space Command.
Meanwhile, a worldwide space culture change has led countries to share more information gleaned from satellites that was once closely guarded.
Earlier this year, America shared the trajectory of a Russian mars probe that crashed to earth after failing to leave orbit, said Brig. Gen. James K. McLaughlin — who counts among his titles the director of space operations for the Air Force.
Years ago, that information would have been secret, he said.
“It is the simple realization of various tasks we cannot shoulder alone no matter what our budgetary situation is like,” said Brig. Gen. Ansgar Rieks, of the German Ministry of Defense.
Communicating the terabytes of data collected by each satellite figures to be among the biggest challenge moving forward, experts said.
McLaughlin needed only one word to assess the U.S. ability to fully transmit data to other countries: “no.”
When every country operates on different technological platforms, sharing data can be difficult, he said.
Today, U.S. airmen will face the other challenge of sharing data — coordinating multi-national troops in the same room while dealing with pesky satellite interference.
“When you have 10 entities, pursuing one goal with varying perspectives potentially — our job here today is to learn how best to integrate those capabilities,” said Brig. Gen. Samuel Greaves, director of plans, programs and analysis for Air Force Space Command.
—
Contact Jakob Rodgers: 476-1654
Twitter @jakobrodgers
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Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
About time we (or someone) went in and did something about these maggots.
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Missed this one.... didn't make the news in most places I guess.
26 February 2013 Last updated at 23:03 ET
US court brands whale activists Sea Shepherd 'pirates'
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...4_66094833.jpg Both sides have accused each other of deliberately ramming ships
Continue reading the main story Related Stories
A court in the US has labelled conservationist group Sea Shepherd "pirates".
Judge Alex Kozinski said the group's "aggressive and high-profile attacks" on Japan's whaling fleet endangered lives, ordering them to stop.
US-based Sea Shepherd has for many years chased the Japanese whalers, attempting to disrupt the annual hunt.
The two sides have frequently clashed at sea, blaming each other for collisions and damage.
Three Sea Shepherd ships have been involved a stand-off and clashes with the whaling fleet in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean for several weeks.
They have been trying to prevent the Japanese ships from refuelling from a tanker ship, the Sun Laurel. Both parties released video footage this week which they said showed the other deliberately ramming their ships.
“Start Quote
Japan is an island nation surrounded by the sea, so taking some good protein from the ocean is very important”
Yoshimasa Hayashi Japanese fisheries minister
Sea Shepherd has also accused the whalers of using water cannon and stun grenades against them, and says Japan has deployed a military icebreaker, the Shirase, to intimidate them - something Japan rejects.
'Embodiment of piracy'
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction last year banning Sea Shepherd from going within 500m of Japan's ships.
Its ruling on Monday clears the way for Japan, which calls the activists terrorists, to launch more extensive legal action against them.
Judge Kozinski overturned an earlier district court ruling which had sided with the activists.
"When you ram ships, hurl glass containers of acid, drag metal-reinforced ropes in the water to damage propellers and rudders, launch smoke bombs and flares with hooks; and point high-powered lasers at other ships, you are, without a doubt, a pirate," he said.
"The activities that Cetacean [the Japanese whalers] alleges Sea Shepherd has engaged in are clear instances of violent acts for private ends, the very embodiment of piracy."
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...8_66094837.jpg Japan says the Sea Shepherd ships are endangering lives at sea (Image by ICR)
He added that the illegality of whaling in Australian waters did not excuse Sea Shepherd's activities.
"It is for Australia, not Sea Shepherd, to police Australia's court orders."
Sea Shepherd argues that the US court has no jurisdiction over foreign-flagged vessels sailing in Australian waters with an international crew.
There has been an international ban on commercial whaling for 25 years, but Japan sends its fleet to the Antarctic in the autumn or winter each year, returning the following spring, with the aim of catching hundreds of whales.
Tokyo says the hunt is part of a scientific research programme and that it is obliged by the whaling treaty to sell meat by-products. But critics say the hunt is commercial whaling in another guise and has no scientific value.
Australia is also taking legal action against Japan over whaling.
But Japan's fisheries minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, has said whaling is part of Japan's culture and that it will never give up hunting the animals.
"Japan is an island nation surrounded by the sea, so taking some good protein from the ocean is very important. For food security I think it's very important," he told AFP.
"So why don't we at least agree to disagree? We have this culture and you don't have that culture... so I just would like to say 'please understand this is our culture'."
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Ok... weird.
18 October 2013 Last updated at 09:58 ET
MV Seaman Guard Ohio: India police arrest crew of US ship
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...1_70554556.jpg
Indian officials say the ship is owned by a private US-based security firm and registered in Sierra Leone
Police in India say they have arrested the crew of a US-owned ship accused of illegally entering Indian waters with a huge cache of weapons on board.
Officials say MV Seaman Guard Ohio was detained on 12 October by the Indian Coast Guard and is currently anchored at a port in southern Tamil Nadu state.
Its 35-member crew include Indians, Britons, Ukrainians and Estonians.
The ship's owner, AdvanFort, said the vessel was involved in supporting anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean.
But there have been differing accounts of the chain of events from the Indian authorities and the US-based security firm.
Piracy threat
The Indian authorities say they intercepted the American ship last weekend when it was reportedly sailing off the coast of Tamil Nadu.
Police also said they found weapons and ammunition on board, which had not been properly declared. Officials say the vessel was not authorised to carry arms in Indian waters and that it never produced the necessary paperwork.
But in a statement released on Monday, AdvanFort said India's coast guard and police allowed the vessel to enter the port to refuel and shelter from a cyclone which hit India's eastern coast last weekend. The company even thanked officials.
It added that all weaponry and equipment on board was properly registered.
In recent years piracy has emerged as a major threat to merchant ships in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, with ships and their crews sometimes hijacked for ransom.
There have been fewer attacks recently, partly because more armed guards are now deployed on board.
On Friday, police said that 33 crew members had been taken to a local police station for questioning. Two had been allowed to remain on the vessel in port at Tuticorin.
Six of the crew members are Britons and the British high commission in Delhi said consular officials had been in touch with them by email and with the local authorities, but they were still trying to clarify exactly what had happened and on what grounds they had been detained.
The US embassy told the BBC it had "no comment" to make.
Protection
According to AdvanFort there were privately contracted security personnel on board the Sierra-Leone registered MV Seaman Guard Ohio.
It said that as these men routinely provide counter-piracy protection they also had uniforms, protective equipment, medical kits, rifles and ammunition - "all of which is properly registered and licensed to AdvanFort".
The company added that the vessel "provides an accommodations platform for AdvanFort's counter-piracy guards between transits on client commercial vessels transiting the high risk area".
Analysts say that anti-piracy measures on high-risk shipping routes are poorly regulated and India is increasingly sensitive to violations of its maritime boundaries.
India directly supports the multi-national campaign to combat the mostly Somali pirates targeting ships in the Indian Ocean with its own navy.
But it's been controversial too, with the Indian authorities prosecuting two Italian marines on anti-piracy duty for allegedly shooting two fishermen inside Indian waters last year.
They were guarding an Italian oil tanker and said they mistook the fishermen for pirates.
==============
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...orth112x81.jpg
Analysis Andrew North South Asia correspondent
Yet again the private security industry is in the frame, with India saying the British and other contractors it has arrested were not authorised to have arms and ammunition in its waters.
The ship's owner, AdvanFort, is one of a growing number of Western security companies involved in protecting shipping from pirates in the Indian Ocean.
India supports those efforts with its own navy. But it has drawn a line with the crew of the MV Seaman Guard Ohio, accusing them of "illegal activity" for failing to provide sufficient paperwork for the weapons on board.
We're still waiting for the company's side of the story.
The Indian government was criticised last year for its handling of the case of the two Italian marines on anti-piracy duty who were accused of shooting two Indian fishermen.
With elections approaching it will want to be seen to be taking a firm line in this latest case, to avoid giving any new ammunition to its opponents.
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Cruisers rely on this to tell them where the big boats are.
Not good.
Leaky security could scuttle global ship-tracking system
Nuke-carrying Iranian ghost ships could be on the USA's radar right now
By Phil Muncaster, 17th October 2013
Security researchers have found a major flaw in the Automatic Identification System (AIS), a mandatory tracking system for ships, which could leave the 400,000 vessels currently using it globally wide open to terrorists or pirates.
Trend Micro’s Kyle Wilhoit and Marco Balduzzi and independent researcher Alessandro Pasta presented their findings at the HITB security conference in Kuala Lumpur this week.
They claimed that AIS has been designed “with seemingly zero security considerations”, potentially allowing hackers to create fake vessels, disable tracking or create false SOS or collision alerts.
Given that the system is mandatory for all commercial ships over 300 metric tons and all passenger ships regardless of weight, the security flaws highlighted in the research are nasty.
AIS works by grabbing GPS data on a ship’s position, course and other info and exchanging it with nearby ships and AIS base stations along the coastline.
However, in a blog post, Wilhoit and Balduzzi explained that they’d found vulnerabilities not only in the AIS protocol but also within service providers such as Marine Traffic which use AIS info on their public-facing sites.
They claimed some of the main providers have vulnerabilities which would allow a hacker to “tamper with valid AIS data and inject invalid AIS data”, leading to a variety of possible outcomes.
These include changing vital ship details such as position, course, speed, cargo or unique MMSI (Mobile Maritime Service Identity).
It could also allow the creation of fake vessels – they gave the example of an Iranian ship filled with nuclear cargo turning up off the US coast.
Hackers could force shipwrecks by “creating and modifying Aid to Navigations (AToN) entries, such as buoys and lighthouses”, and even spoof the take-off and flight of search and rescue aircraft.
Wilhoit and Balduzzi also found flaws in the AIS protocol used in hardware transceivers installed in all vessels using the system.
This could lead to the following scenarios, they claimed:
Impersonate marine authorities to permanently disable the AIS system on a vessel, both forcing the ship to stop communicating its position, and stop getting AIS notifications from all nearby vessels (essentially a denial of service attack). This can also be tagged to a geographical area e.g. as soon as ship enters Somalia sea space it vanishes of AIS, but the pirates who carried out the attack can still see it.
Fake a “man-in-the-water” distress beacon at any location that will also trigger alarms on all vessel within approximately 50 km.
Fake a CPA alert (Closest Point of Approach) and trigger a collision warning alert. In some cases this can even cause software on the vessel to recalculate a course to avoid collision, allowing an attacker to physically nudge a boat in a certain direction.
Send false weather information to a vessel, e.g. approaching storms to route around.
Cause all ships to send AIS traffic much more frequently than normal, resulting in a flooding attack on all vessels and marine authorities in range.
The problem, the duo claimed, is that AIS was “designed in a world before the Internet or software-defined radio”.
This means it lacks basic security measures such as geographical validity checks to ensure the accuracy of AIS messages; time-stamping of messages; authentication of message senders; and encryption to prevent message interception/modification.
Trend Micro said it will be releasing a white paper around the findings in due course and has already disclosed its research to all major AIS standards bodies and online AIS tracking info providers. ®
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
October 24, 2013, 10:52 AM Pirates nab 2 U.S. sailors from oil ship off Nigeria
LONDON Two U.S. mariners have been taken hostage after an attack on a U.S. ship 40 miles off the Nigerian coast.
The American captain and chief engineer of the oil platform supply ship C-Retriever were kidnapped by pirates off the coast of Nigeria on Wednesday, news agencies reported, citing anonymous U.S. defense officials.
U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News correspondent David Martin that there were 13 people on board the vessel when it came under attack, and that two American citizens were taken hostage and being held at an unknown location. Their condition was unknown, and there were no immediate claims of responsibility.
The State Department said it was "closely monitoring" the reports and was "seeking additional information about the incident." The U.S. considers the incident an act of piracy and not terrorism, reports CBS News State Department correspondent Margaret Brennan. The U.S. Embassy in Lagos and the FBI are involved in the investigation.
The Gulf of Guinea is an area where oil bunkering occurs and ships anchor, Brennan reports. There is not a large naval protective presence where the kidnapping occurred, unlike off the coast of Somalia where shipping lanes are protected.
Maritime industry website gCaptain first reported the incident, saying the "C-Retriever," owned by Louisiana-based marine transport company Edison Chouest, was attacked by pirates near the city of Brass, in the Niger Delta, on Wednesday. Brass sits at the mouth of one of the many rivers and streams that empty into the Gulf of Guinea, forming the Delta, which is home to a number of large international oil platforms and regular industry ship traffic.
Edison Chouest did not immediately respond to a CBS News request for comment on the reports.
An American man from Georgia was kidnapped from the Niger Delta city of Warri last year. He was freed after a week in captivity, possibly for a large ransom, though the circumstances were not confirmed. There were five reports of U.S. nationals being kidnapped in Nigeria in 2011.
Nigeria's government earns billions of dollars a year from its resources in the oil-rich Delta, but is frequently accused of widespread corruption that keeps the vast majority of Nigerians from sharing in the wealth.
The Delta region's inhabitants remain impoverished, and for years small groups of bandits have attacked oil industry vessels, but the attacks have increased in recent years and become more dangerous, according to one industry worker who left the region last year.
George Ezard, a British contract engineer who spent eight years working in Nigeria, told CBSNews.com the attacks on ships and platforms were even creeping west from the Delta toward Lagos, Nigeria's sprawling economic capital.
"Only one company would give us life insurance, but it wasn't valid in the Delta," recalled Ezard, who worked most recently in Lagos but was previously based in the Delta city of Port Harcourt.
"Even in Lagos it (pirate attacks) was increasing," he said. "It was really getting to be bad. He said the threat in the early years was "from small-time opportunists, then suddenly it became armed gangs who killed people and demanded ransoms."
In addition to the threat of piracy in the Delta region, Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north is facing an insurgency by Muslim separatists, led by the militant group Boko Haram, which has carried out numerous attacks against the Christian minority in the region.
The Nigerian military has established a Joint Task Force to tackle the problem of piracy in the south, while carrying out a military offensive against Boko Haram in the north.
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
U.S.-flagged ship attacked; two crew members taken hostage
Oct. 24, 2013 | 1:09 PM
http://www.upi.com/img/clear.gif
http://cdn.ph.upi.com/sv/b/upi_com/U...en-hostage.jpg
The C-Retriever oil platform supply vessel is pictured in this 2008 file photo at the Bonny River in Nigeria. On October 25, 2013 two crew members thought to be U.S. citizens were taken from the U.S.-flagged ship in a pirate attack off the Nigeria coast. (File/Christian/Shipspotting.com)
ABUJA, Nigeria, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- Two crew members thought to be U.S. citizens were taken from their U.S.-flagged ship in a pirate attack off the Nigeria coast, a U.S. official said Thursday.
The U.S. officials said the two crew members were the captain and chief engineer, CNN said.
The attack on the oil platform supply vessel C-Retriever occurred in the Gulf of Guinea off the port city of Brass.
Details about the attack, the conditions of the kidnapped men or the vessel's condition weren't immediately available.
The C-Retriever is owned by Edison Chouest Offshore, based in Louisiana.
The oil-rich Gulf of Guinea has drawn attention as a piracy hotbed recently, with more than 40 pirate attacks reported through September, the International Maritime Bureau said. The bureau said 132 crew members have been taken hostage.
U.S. Marines were in the region aboard a Dutch ship, CNN said.
Forces from the United States, Britain, Spain, the Netherlands and five African countries recently conducted exercises off the west African coast meant to help strengthen maritime security, the U.S. Navy said.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-Ne...#ixzz2ifIsZ8HG
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Pirates Singled Out Americans in Ship Attack Off Nigeria, Official Says
Oct. 24, 2013
By LUIS MARTINEZ, DANA HUGHES and JOSH MARGOLIN Dana Hughes More from Dana »
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Pirates have stormed an oil supply vessel off southern Nigeria and kidnapped the ship's captain and chief engineer.
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Armed pirates stormed a U.S.-flagged ship off the coast of Nigeria, separated the crew by nationality and kidnapped two Americans on board, a Pentagon official told ABC News.
The attack occurred during the early morning hours today just inside international waters. The unknown number of assailants damaged the communications and navigation equipment on the ship as they departed with their captives, possibly an effort to delay notification to authorities, the official said.
The men are likely now on land and the FBI in New York, which deals with Africa cases, is taking point in the investigation. Another U.S. government official briefed on the situation said the American government is treating the case as a potential kidnapping-for-ransom and not a politically-motivated act.
Representatives for the State Department and the White House said they are "closely monitoring" the situation. The State Department said that as of now, there's no indication the attack was an act of terrorism.
The Americans were taken off the U.S.-flagged C-Retriever, a 222-foot vessel owned by U.S. marine transport group Edison Chouest Offshore that is an oil supply vessel. Edison Chouest Offshore did not immediately return requests for comment.
The kidnapping was first reported by gCaptain.com, a maritime industry news website.
While globally piracy was down last year to its lowest levels in seven years, cases in Nigeria are on the rise. According to the International Maritime Bureau, pirate attacks off Nigeria's coast have jumped by a third this year -- allegedly perpetrated by criminal gangs who are looking for cargo ships with commodities, and seeking ransom for hostages.
Kidnapping for ransom has been a growing issue in Nigeria for several years. In 2006 ABC News interviewed an American, Texas Richards, who had been kidnapped by Nigerians and freed.
In 2009, on the other side of Africa, American Capt. Richard Phillips was held hostage on the Indian Ocean by a group of Somali pirates for five days before he was freed in a daring rescue by U.S. Navy SEALs. Hollywood recreated that ordeal in a recent blockbuster film starring Tom Hanks as Capt. Phillips.
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Old article but had to post it... :)
Top 5 blunders of Somali pirates
Somali pirates attacked a French Navy ship by accident Tuesday night. Five suspects are in custody.
By Matthew Clark, Staff writer / October 7, 2009
Not a cargo ship: The French Navy ship "Somme" was attacked by Somali pirates on Tuesday.
Thibaut Claisse/ECPAD/French Navy/AP
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It's time to roll that sad trombone sound again. You know ... whomp whomp whomp waaaaah.
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition
Lately, those once fearsome Somali pirates have been behaving more like Keystone Krooks than savvy organized criminals.
Yesterday, they bit off more than they could chew by attacking a French Navy ship off the coast of their lawless country.
They thought it was a cargo vessel.
D'oh!
"Once they realized they were facing a ship that was responding and was heading towards them, they stopped shooting and attempted to flee," said French military spokesman Christophe Prazuck. "The Somme [a command and supply ship] gave chase and intercepted one of the pirates' boats. All the weapons had apparently been tossed into the sea and the suspected pirates are now being held on board the Somme."
Sigh.
Apparently, that's what happens when you attack at night without hi-tech equipment. Despite some evidence of off-shore mother ships, sophisticated money and intelligence transfers, most Somali pirates are rag-tag groups of impoverished fishermen and other coastal dwellers who are in it for some quick cash. With dreams of ransom riches dancing in their heads, they grab their AK-47s, jump into small skiffs, and try to take on passing trading vessels. (Read the recent cover story of our weekly magazine for an inside look at how the business works.)
This is the third time this year that Somali pirates have attacked a Western military vessel by mistake, which brings us to our Top 5 list of Somali pirates blunders.
5. Last night's attack on the French Navy vessel.
4. On May 4, the French Navy captured 11 pirates off the coast of Somalia as part of a European Union operation to protect shipping. The pirates reportedly mistook a French frigate for a commercial ship.
3. On March 30, pirates apparently mistook a German NATO supply ship, the FGS Spessart, for a merchant ship when they targeted it in the Gulf of Aden, between Somalia and Yemen. "Poor judgment by the pirates turned out to be a real opportunity for seven nations representing three task forces to work together and strike a momentous blow for maritime safety and security," said a NATO spokesman.
2. On Sept. 26, 2008, pirates seized the Faina, a Ukrainian vessel loaded with $30 million worth of grenade launchers, piles of ammunition, and battle tanks.
Jackpot! Well, sort of. After four months of negotiations, the owners paid $3.2 million in cash dropped by parachute.
But this particular pirate operation also resulted in global attention and a concerted military response. It's now much harder for the brigands to ply the region's waters with impunity.
"After the Faina was taken, two task forces — from Nato and the EU — have sailed for the Gulf of Aden along with an assortment of warships from other nations," reports the London-based Times newspaper. "It was the thought of heavy weaponry falling into the hands of the country’s Islamists — some with links to Al Qaeda — at one of the country’s arms bazaars that provoked an international military response."
1. On April 8, pirates seized the US-flagged 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama, which was carrying food aid from USAID and other agencies to help malnourished people in Uganda and Somalia. The pirates didn't last long. In a rescue worthy of a Hollywood script, US Navy SEAL snipers killed three pirates and freed the American sea captain who had offered himself as a hostage to save his crew
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
SOMALI PIRATES SHOOT AT TANKER 1 comment
Pirates have fired upon a products tanker off the coast of Somalia, the IMB reported. The ship was travelling 115nm south of Salalah, Oman on 17 January when it was fired upon by men in a skiff that had been launched from a mother ship. The alarm was raised, and the crew retreated to the unnamed ship’s citadel while the on-boardsecurity guards returned fire. The pirates subsequently called off their attack, the IMB report added. The IMB recorded just six attacks during the whole of 2013 in the Gulf of Aden, compared with 117 in 2009, the year that Somali piracy was at its height.
ihsmaritime360.com
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
So now that boats have security teams and they return fire, the hijacks have been severely curtailed? You mean arming the victims works? Who would have thunk it?
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
Re: Pirates! Activity Around the world
There was some outcry when discussion of armed security was suggested, but no one seems to argue now.